[Met Performance] CID:5600



Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, January 8, 1887 Matinee





Lohengrin (36)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Lohengrin
Albert Niemann

Elsa
Therese Herbert-F?rster

Ortrud
Marianne Brandt

Telramund
Wilhelm Basch

King Heinrich
Georg Sieglitz

Herald
Max Heinrich

Noble
Otto Kemlitz

Noble
Julius Meyer

Noble
Jean Dor?

Noble
Emil S?nger


Conductor
Anton Seidl







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE.

"Lohengrin," which has been almost continuously before the American public for close upon 15 years, can scarcely be regarded as a novelty. Yet it is still potent to attract and delight, and its latest performance, which occurred at the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon, filled the auditorium to overflowing. The representation was interesting at all points, but its special impressiveness was to be sought in Herr Niemann's portrayal of Lohengrin and in Fr?ulein Brandt's delineation of Ortrud. That the German contralto's work should claim attention and admiration is not exactly surprising. There have been many Ortruds whose voices have been fresher and whose command of the art of song has been greater than Fr?ulein Brandt's, but none of the prima donnas that have assumed the role have supplied a personation of like intensity and wealth of detail. The grounds for Herr Niemann's success as Lohengrin are, on the other hand, less apparent to people that have seen but little of this mature but gifted and experienced performer. At least half a dozen Lohengrins are remembered in this city, all of whom have imparted to the sensuous music of the opera a charm that Herr Niemann fails to endow it with; even in the most picturesque and impassioned representations of the Knight of the Grail, however, no one has bestowed upon the personage the sympathetic attributes of simplicity, tenderness, and dignity more happily than the German tenor. Thus it was yesterday that the love passages with Elsa in the second act, and the noble duet in the third, although shorn of much of their tonal beauty, lost none of their effect; one marveled, afterward, that so much could be accomplished with such slender vocal resources, but, when Lohengrin reappeared, what was missed was never felt to be wanting, thanks wholly to the unaffectedness and sincerity underlying and sustaining the personation. The efforts of the other artists were commendable; they ranged, withal, over a far lower plane than was attained by Herr Niemann and Fr?ulein Brandt. Frau Herbert-Foerster was Elsa - a pleasing "picture to look upon," and a conscientious songstress to listen to, but hardly an Elsa fitted to efface the brightest memories of earlier representatives of Wagner's heroine.



Search by season: 1886-87

Search by title: Lohengrin,



Met careers